What's up, Doc?

Thinking about Paul Wellstone and the effort to honor him by passing legislation to assist people with mental illness sent me off in search of more information on the issue, which led me to this distressing piece from the Boston Globe...

"In his run for president, former governor Howard Dean moved early to stake out the territory of mental health for himself, delivering a speech Sept. 12 that promised "real solutions to the mental health care crisis" and holding up the Vermont system as a model. But the state's neglected mental hospital shows the limits of the Vermont success story. Last month the hospital lost its right to collect an annual $700,000 in funds from Medicaid and Medicare -- a rare sanction that was brought against only one psychiatric hospital in the country last year, of 477 that receive the funds..."

Read the article and wonder why this guy should be setting health care policy - for mental or any illness - for the nation.